Russian election: Persecuted Tatars have a history of antipathy

As President Putin celebrated with loyal Russian supporters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol yesterday, one group of residents was keeping well away.

The Crimean Tatars are the indigenous population of the peninsula, and most opposed the Kremlin’s seizure of their homeland in 2014, some of them vocally.

Since the annexation their leaders have been exiled and several young men from the 240,000-strong community have gone missing in mysterious circumstances. In September one leader, Akhtem Chiygoz, was sentenced to eight years in prison on bogus charges of organising “mass riots”.

Human Rights Watch said in a report in November that persecution of the Tatars had intensified, “with the apparent goal of completely silencing dissent on the peninsula”.